Watchdog finds child protection system is still failing to safeguard

Watchdog finds child protection system is still failing to safeguard children

Councils are still failing to learn from their mistakes in some of the most serious cases of child abuse, despite the renewed focus on safeguarding in the wake of the Baby Peter tragedy, inspectors say today.

A report from the childrens’ services watchdog, Ofsted, into 173 serious case reviews in the year to April 2009, found that the “failures and deficiencies” of social workers and other agencies, which were too often seen in cases where young people died or were injured, were almost unchanged from the year before.

Two children have been found murdered at their home in Manchester and their father has been arrested, police said today. Theo Molemohi, two, and his sister Yolande, four, were found unconscious at a flat in Whalley Range, two miles south of the city centre, just after 8am today

A 37-year-old man, believed to be the children’s father, who was in the flat with them, was arrested on suspicion of murder. He later collapsed while in police custody and was taken to hospital.

Autism sufferers are being “cast adrift” when they become adults because of a lack of knowledge and awareness among health and social care staff, MPs have said. The Commons public accounts committee said too many went unhelped unless they developed more serious problems.

NHS children’s services are to be reviewed in a bid to prevent any more abused youngsters dying like Baby P.Health Secretary Andy Burnham called the 2007 death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly – who was seen dozens of times by doctors – a “terrible tragedy”.Read more on this story in The Sun

Ministers to spend £12m to fight white working-class extremism

Hundreds of “white enclaves” across the UK have been chosen to receive special funding from the government, in an effort to curb the spread of racist extremism among the working classes.

Ministers are to spend £12m reassuring 130 “traditional communities” across the country that immigrants and non-white residents are not unfairly taking their jobs and houses.Read more on this story in The Independent

‘Honour killing girl may have been pregnant

The schoolgirl victim of an alleged “honour killing” may have been pregnant, a court was told yesterday.

Tulay Goren, 15, vanished ten years ago. Her father, Mehmet Goren, 49, and uncles Ali Goren, 55, and Cuma Goren, 42, are accused of her murder. She had run away to be with Halil Unal, a man twice her age and from a different Muslim sect, but disappeared after she was seized by her father in January 1999.